3 ms·

Look no further than simple headsets. Wanted to have a light, cheap one from Sennheiser (one of those for 20 €) for homeoffice use. Sold out on Amazon. Estimat

Look no further than simple headsets. Wanted to have a light, cheap one from Sennheiser (one of those for 20 €) for homeoffice use. Sold out on Amazon. Estimated delivery mid or late May. And it's like that for all the inexpensive "business headphones". If you want some shiny-blinky-bulky-"gamer headset", Amazon will be happy to send you a dozen till tomorrow morning. It's crazy.

dannyw 7y ago
Just wear a gamer headset then.
- dasyatidprime 7y ago
  I use a Sennheiser GAME ZERO for audio calls on a regular basis, including professionally, because the sound quality is quite good for voice. (I do also use it for gaming, and for music listening.) For audio calls they're not going to see it anyway, and I don't think most of the people I talk to would care if they saw it on a video call; the design doesn't scream “business”, but the red metal tracery is the only flashy thing about it, and that's kinda subtle. What's more of a problem I might run into soon is that my setup was already out of date for video calls; this seems increasingly like a hard expectation rather than an optional plus; and the pseudo-docking way I use my primary laptop at my desk doesn't currently allow me to orient the builtin camera so that it catches my expression at a reasonable angle while also letting me leave the monitor in front of me. Putting the laptop where my monitor currently is might be workable, but it could also get squint-inducing at that distance… I might have to play around with this.
  - martin_a 7y ago
    Same for me on the camera angle part: I have connected the work laptop to my private 4k display, but I'm not using the Logitech camera which sits on top of the 4k display (mostly because I would need to clean my "hobby desk" then, not really in the mood for that :-D), so I use the integrated one. This leads to me looking straight at the large display and the camera facing me from the lower right. Well... Could be worse.
- martin_a 7y ago
  Nah, thanks, I have to do video calls with customers, they might find the flashing cat ears somewhat strange.
  - zeepzeep 7y ago
    Maybe don't pick the furry one then. Headphones with mic from your old phone should do it too.
    - martin_a 7y ago
      Got an inexpensive headset from Logitech. It's fine, but it's glossy white... Well... Guess you'll have to die one death.
- bostik 7y ago
  Gaming headsets are actually pretty good for video conferencing. I got a pretty cheap one (£20) from a major UK chain as a test. Has worked wonders, even if ear fit is not perfect (bit heavy compared to what I normally would wear) and sound quality sucks for music. The alternatives would have been £70+ fancy sets, but I wasn't in the mood of experimenting with those kind of ticket prices. Others at the company have bought similar items over the past couple of weeks too, and they are an increasing presence at conference calls. I wouldn't be surprised if the non-blinkenlight variants were the next item to go on scalpers' hot list.

dannyw 7y ago

Just wear a gamer headset then.

dasyatidprime 7y ago
I use a Sennheiser GAME ZERO for audio calls on a regular basis, including professionally, because the sound quality is quite good for voice. (I do also use it for gaming, and for music listening.) For audio calls they're not going to see it anyway, and I don't think most of the people I talk to would care if they saw it on a video call; the design doesn't scream “business”, but the red metal tracery is the only flashy thing about it, and that's kinda subtle. What's more of a problem I might run into soon is that my setup was already out of date for video calls; this seems increasingly like a hard expectation rather than an optional plus; and the pseudo-docking way I use my primary laptop at my desk doesn't currently allow me to orient the builtin camera so that it catches my expression at a reasonable angle while also letting me leave the monitor in front of me. Putting the laptop where my monitor currently is might be workable, but it could also get squint-inducing at that distance… I might have to play around with this.
- martin_a 7y ago
  Same for me on the camera angle part: I have connected the work laptop to my private 4k display, but I'm not using the Logitech camera which sits on top of the 4k display (mostly because I would need to clean my "hobby desk" then, not really in the mood for that :-D), so I use the integrated one. This leads to me looking straight at the large display and the camera facing me from the lower right. Well... Could be worse.
martin_a 7y ago
Nah, thanks, I have to do video calls with customers, they might find the flashing cat ears somewhat strange.
- zeepzeep 7y ago
  Maybe don't pick the furry one then. Headphones with mic from your old phone should do it too.
  - martin_a 7y ago
    Got an inexpensive headset from Logitech. It's fine, but it's glossy white... Well... Guess you'll have to die one death.
bostik 7y ago
Gaming headsets are actually pretty good for video conferencing. I got a pretty cheap one (£20) from a major UK chain as a test. Has worked wonders, even if ear fit is not perfect (bit heavy compared to what I normally would wear) and sound quality sucks for music. The alternatives would have been £70+ fancy sets, but I wasn't in the mood of experimenting with those kind of ticket prices. Others at the company have bought similar items over the past couple of weeks too, and they are an increasing presence at conference calls. I wouldn't be surprised if the non-blinkenlight variants were the next item to go on scalpers' hot list.